HPI Savage 5T - Differential Cup Reducer

After make the diff cup sleeve someone suggested to make a spacer that goes inside the Heavy Duty 11mm diff cups so I can us it with a 8mm dog bone. I tried to make something like this before but I stopped because my initial design did not work out. I was not able to keep the spacer to stay together as on piece after I cut the slot out for the dog bone.

Some people would ask why would I use a 8mm dog bone instead of the stock 11mm. Well, it is because I want to use a CVD setup instead of a dog bone. Go here to read more about the CVD conversion

I revisited the idea about creating a spacer for the diff cup and came up with something that might work. Here is this picture you will see that I started with an 7075 aluminum rod. Then I turned down the rod so it is similar to the side of the diff cup.

This is my first attempt in making a spacer/reducer that will allow me to use a 8mm dog bone. It is kind of rough and I had a little problem with clamping this piece on to my vise to mill out the slots. As you can see a small part of the upper corner is missing because it came loose while I was cutting it.

This is a view from the bottom, the end that goes inside the diff cup.

Test fitting the reducer in the diff cup.

The fit is a bit snug, so I hope I does not bind.

Here is a profile view of the diff cup with the reducer in the middle. In this picture you can get a better idea how much space the bottom of the reducer takes up.

Here is a picture of the reducers mounted.

In this picture you can see how far in the dog bone goes in the cup. That is pretty much the furthest it could go in because the reducer takes up a lots of space inside the cup.

I had to cut a little more from the CEN CVD because I was limited to how far the dog bone with go inside the cup. The top is from the front for the truck and the bottom is for the rear end of the truck.

To give you an idea the size of my 1/5 scale savage I have it next to my E-Revo. As of now the 1/5 savage weights 22.6lbs, that includes the body & two 3s Lipo Battery. So if these parts hold up for this truck I think I will do fine for a XL. Or you can look at this way... you might not have the same problems i'm having if you have a XL or smaller.